Published at 14th of October 2023 4:58 pm

Chapter 24 – Those Who Strive

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Vanalath, after thinking for some time, had begun to make some sense of the words. It grew easier the longer he kept at it, and soon he was able to read the message in stutters and starts.

The message was telling him that he had been a ghoul, but had since evolved into something called a wight. What interested him the most were these lines:

Innate ability <Conformity> lost.

Innate ability <Rule of the Grave> developed.

He ended up focusing on the phrase, “innate ability,” when the message he was studying vanished and a new one appeared.

Innate Abilities: <Poison Resistance> (15), <Disease Resistance> (19), <Pain Resistance> (22), <Thermal Resistance> (3), <Darksight> (14), <Spirit Speech> (8), <Rule of the Grave> (1)

As he slowly read over the list, Vanalath’s eyes began to widen. He couldn’t be sure, but… he was almost certain that the values of most of these skills were higher than any he’d ever known in life. Yet something about this was odd. These skills had no level marker— they were granted a simple numerical value after their name. Did this have something to do with their innate nature? His fragmented knowledge didn’t inform him about what this meant.

With an unconscious mental command, he summoned his status, not even pausing to wonder that he knew how to do so.

A mix of red and blue characters appeared, and Vanalath began reviewing it all. He found that certain parts stood out more than others, and he lingered on these details, as if they might help him unearth his buried memories.

The stats were most immediately familiar to him. Strength, vitality, stamina… he’d seen this layout when he was alive. He must have known it well, as the definitions came to him speedily.

Strength was the core. It represented his athletic ability, running speed, and physical toughness. It affected nearly every part of his body.

Vitality… he had no value listed for vitality, but it was a measure of health. With more of it, he would heal faster, recover more quickly from sicknesses, and shrug off the effects from heat and cold. He considered this further. Being dead, he had no vitality, but perhaps his innate abilities—his resistances—were what accommodated this lacking statistic.

He scoured his mind for the rest of the information on his status. As he did, faint memories flashed before him, as if playing on the back of his eyelids.

Dexterity…

“It’s a measure of my finesse. Obviously.”

“Don’t give me the textbook answer, Van. What is dexterity to a swordsman?”

“Er, it’s… how good they are at hitting things?”

Octavian’s face remained impassive. “It’s everything. It’s how well your fingers respond to your thoughts. How steady your hands remain under pressure. It pairs with agility to improve your perception of the world around you. It aids you in reading the movements of your enemies, in predicting their attacks. With it, you pick up moves more quickly and perform them better.

“Finally,” he continued, “it’s the most important stat for raising your swordfighting skill. Even strength is not as important as dexterity for a swordsman, and strength is very important.”

Vanalath was silent for a long moment before he spoke. “…Okay, I get it. But I have a question.”

“Ask.”

“Why do you keep teaching me all these things about stats and skills and stuff? It’s not like I can see them. Or level up. Why does knowing all that stuff matter?”

“You should know why. We’ve been training your basic physical ability. It’s important to understand the source of your strengths. I don’t want to hear that you’ve made no improvements—”

The man, without a break in his words, flicked a pebble at Vanalath’s face. Though Octavian’s only hint was the slightest movement of his fingers, the boy ducked, and the stone sailed harmlessly by, clattering onto the pebbled garden path.

“—since when we had just begun three months ago, you couldn’t even see that stone before it hit you. Agility let you dodge it. Dexterity helped you perceive it.”

Vanalath rubbed his forehead. Those earliest lessons were painful.

“But do I really have those stats?” he asked. “I don’t even have a Brand yet.”

“Yet? You don’t have one yet, you say?”

Something in his teacher’s tone, normally so impassive, made him flinch back.

“Do you perhaps operate on the assumption that you are destined a Brand since your father, and his father before him, bore Brands? Do you believe that Brands are given based on lineage? If that were so, the Triumvirate wouldn’t exist. If your forefathers believed that, they wouldn’t have received their marks, being content to sit on their laurels and reap their birthright.

“No, Van. Brands are granted,” he said, enunciating the word, “to those who strive.”

Vanalath disliked these flashes of memories. Looking into the past like this was an uncomfortable experience. Still, he had learned something. Dexterity was as important as strength? Then he had been letting his fall by the wayside… or had he? That would only be if he had a choice of which stats to raise, but it seemed that his growth was either random or completely predetermined.

Perhaps it wasn’t, however. In concert with this recent memory came a feeling that he could exert some degree of control over his stat growth, but he couldn’t recall how this was achieved.

He inspected his statistic with a furrowed brow. Some of the values were higher than he might have had in life, though he recalled no exact values. Some were certainly lower. There was a key difference in his list, however. The final two stats, ichor and miasma, he didn’t recognize. If they were similar to the values he remembered, then they referred to his life energy and magic.

Also recognizable to him were the skills <Swordsmanship> and <Poise>, and he had the feeling that these, at least, were skills he possessed in life. The same couldn’t be said for any of the others. The class of <Duelist> felt different. None of the red text concerning his race ringed any bells, though that wasn’t surprising.

The single most conspicuous item on his status was the title of <Rex>. A thrill of pride ran through him as he looked at that word. All he knew was that something about that title was special, inspiring in him a hint of remembered awe.

<Rex> (⁎)

You have manifested the Shape of a conqueror through an act of overbearing will.

One of the Three Noble Titles, <Rex> is the point of the spear: The King of War. You become adept at imposing your will on others.

Stratum 1

The description here was barely helpful. He had the Shape of a conqueror? What did that mean? At least “imposing your will on others” sounded useful, though it wasn’t clear to what extent this would apply.

Were his other two titles equally cryptic?

<Cannibal>

You have relished in the act of devouring the flesh of your own kind. You gain more nourishment from those that share your form, and you appear more monstrous to their eyes.

<Hunter of Brands> (⁎)

You have dealt the final blow to another Branded. You can innately sense when other Branded are nearby.

Stratum 1

It appeared that these titles gave benefits that weren’t immediately palpable. The final title, <Hunter of Brands>, seemed the most immediately useful of the three. Being able to sense the presence of other Branded might save his life. At the same time, this meant that others likely had access to the same title, which would hamper his ability to conceal his own nature as a Branded.

Concerning the words “Stratum 1,” the available evidence suggested that it had something to do with the red star by the names of two of the titles, though he couldn’t be sure. Perhaps the level of the stratum could be increased in the same way as his abilities, meaning the title could grow.

As Vanalath read over these various descriptions at increasing speed, he didn’t realize how much more skilled he’d gotten at reading in the past ten minutes alone. His latest evolution appeared to be the igniting event that finally allowed him to shake off the last of those dusty cobwebs in his skull. In time, perhaps, all his memories would return.

As Vanalath worked his way down his status with increasing speed, he realized that one thing was off. The list of his innate abilities didn’t appear anywhere. But even as he had the thought, the characters blurred, and the section he lacked materialized, shifting everything below it down a row.

He blinked. Had he just caused that to happen? By merely thinking of it? Vanalath imagined the list vanishing, and it did with a similar suddenness. Then, he summoned it again.

It appeared there was much to learn about his abilities.

INFORMATION

Name: Vanalath

Titles: <Cannibal>, <Rex> (⁎), <Hunter of Brands> (⁎)

Race: <Wight>

Level: 40

Abilities: <Howl> (Lv.1), <Miasmic Sight> (Lv.2), <Tough Skin> (Lv.1)

Innate Abilities: <Poison Resistance> (15), <Disease Resistance> (19), <Pain Resistance> (22), <Thermal Resistance> (3), <Darksight> (14), <Spirit Speech> (8), <Rule of the Grave> (1)

Class: <Duelist>

Level: 39

Skills: <Swordsmanship> (Lv.2), <Poise> (Lv.1), <Conceptualization> (Lv.2), <Dominate> (Lv.0)

Status Effects: <???>

STATISTICS

Strength: 46

Vitality: -

Stamina: 33

Agility: 48

Dexterity: 27

Ichor: 6

Miasma: 19

Just as Vanalath was preparing to investigate his abilities and skills, he was interrupted.

First came a sense, a strange awareness of a presence, one that dimly warned of danger. This sensation was accompanied by a sound from across the brook. From out of the trees loomed a hunched figure that was dragging something behind it. Vanalath rose to his feet, his hand moving to his sword, but when he saw the appearance of the being, he paused. A familiar smiling mask, painted green and spattered in blood, adorned its face.

- - -

Lae groaned, clutching her wrist, as Kye practically dragged her through the woods. He was pale and frightened, but not as much as she was. She stumbled along blindly, tripping over roots and rocks, searching for a way out of the chaos that engulfed her mind.

Three hours ago, Kye had disobeyed Orimo’s orders at her behest.

The hunter had led them off the trail and up a narrow incline, eventually bringing them to a cliff that oversaw the camp. By the time they arrived, the fight had been going on for some time. At first glance, they appeared to be winning. Many ghouls lay dead before the hunters, and though much of the enemy force remained far from the flickering firelight, she could tell that there were less left alive than dead.

But that howl, familiar and ominous, struck a chord of fear in her.

When the monster that had unleashed it charged at her father, an icy chill settled in her gut. It used one of the hunters as a disposable shield to close in on Orimo, and her father felt threatened enough to use a skill to shoot an arrow at his subordinate, intending to sacrifice the man to get at the thing holding him. The ghoul somehow sensed it and dodged, throwing the hunter aside. The arrow impacted the ground behind it, exploding and leaving a crater three feet wide in its wake. As the cloud of dirt settled, the monster arrived at her father’s perch, sword bared.

Nearby, Kye paused loosing his ineffectual arrows at the other undead so he could observe the fight. He didn’t interfere, however, knowing that a distraction might cost the Hunt-Leader greatly. Glancing up at her companion for comfort, Lae saw tension in the set of his jaw.

Even she could tell her father was weak. Perhaps it was his injury, sapping at his stamina. Her grip tightened around the rock in her hands. Kye hadn’t wanted her too close to the front line, as he was worried she might be spotted, but their current location placed them nearly directly above Orimo. Thanks to that, she had the sudden, mad idea that she could stop that monster. She had picked up the heavy stone with that thought in mind. But one thing prevented her from loosing it right then.

Faith in her father.

However, when the ghoul’s head covering fell to the ground and revealed his face, her father flinched. Lae had expected what lay underneath, but she still recoiled. Even from the back, she recognized the creature from the cave.

She threw the rock before she was able to stop herself. A combination of fear and anger was what had launched the thing. That was when she felt the first twinges in her left hand, but she ignored the feeling, focused as she was on the fight.

It had been a mistake. She’d hit the ghoul, but her father was affected more severely than the monster.

“Lae! You’re still here!? Go at once!”

In what seemed an instant, Orimo was blown away. It had happened too fast for her to process it. Her eyes had just been widening in recognition when the thing charged.

Her father crumpled against the Standing Stone.

A feeling bubbled up in Lae, a blinding heat that seared her vision red.

She didn’t remember exactly what she did after that. There were only pictures. Images of the monster recovering, picking itself off its feet and striding to her father. Kye firing down on it to no effect. Her father looking up at her. Perhaps he said something, but through a combination of distance, her tears, and the blood that gushed forth from his mouth, obscuring his lips, she couldn’t tell what it was.

Other than these pictures, why couldn’t she remember what she was doing? Was she really just standing still? Was she yelling back, reaching out to her father in his last moments? What sort of an ugly face had she shown him?

The ghoul dealt the final blow, and Lae saw her father’s head fall. She tasted copper.

It was that first cut on her hand, paralyzing her with pain, that hurt the worst. After that, it got easier.

But she was still writhing on the ground, screaming, as Kye struggled to drag her away from earshot of the monsters who overran the camp.

Her hand felt as if she’d placed it into a pile of burning coals. She thought her skin was melting. Now, she thought of the pain as almost a blessing, as it made her forget her father’s death for an instant. Regrettably, when the mind-numbing agony cleared and she saw the red rune inscribed onto the back of her hand, she knew it was no blessing. The circle with two outward-facing horns made a distinct mark on her skin.

It was the same mark born by the ghoul that killed her father.

It was a curse.

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